Well within the highly visited temple area of Angkor hides a secret trail away from everything, and everyone. This trail leads us around the ancient wall of Angkor Thom featuring amazing views, close-ups with the amazing smiling faces of the Angkor Thom gates, and four hidden temples.
Angkor Thom is the large walled ancient city complex located just northwest of Angkor Wat and houses several popular and well-visited sites such as Bayon Temple, Baphoun Temple, and many others. I’ll cover all of those here.
Few visitors perhaps realise, nor have the time with so many significant temples to explore on a time-limited ticket, that this trail around the outer wall exists or that it’s even possible to go up the wall.
The walls of Angkor Thom are 8m high and approx 10m wide allowing for foot traffic and bike traffic to circumnavigate the entire length of the wall dropping down to ground level only at each of the four entrance gates.
It’s from the inner wall of any of those entrance gates where you’ll notice a trail to the left or right of the gate leading up. They are simple dirt trails, only wide enough for a moto, bike, or foot traffic. (Update: from 17/02/2021 Motorbikes are not allowed along the wall of Angkor Thom)
Once on top, you can look out over the moat and bridge even getting up close to those amazing smiling faces that Angkor is so famous for. From here you can follow the trail along the top and continue to enjoy the views over the moat and you’ll be unlikely to see a soul in your travels.
Some wall sections have collapsed but the trail is easily followed around any obstructions.
Each wall section is around 3km long and at each corner, you’ll find rarely visited prasats that feature all the decorations of the main temples such as lintel remnants, apsara reliefs, and wall decoration.
The South West Prasat Chrung is perhaps the most beautiful featuring views over the well-maintained section of the outer moat, stairs from the top of the wall down to the moat, and a beautiful prasat.
Trail Map
It’s simple enough, just take the trail up the top of the wall and follow it to each corner prasat. If your time is limited, I suggest just doing the southwest corner, starting from the south gate and head to the southwest prasat (bottom left on the map below) and return to the south gate taking around 1-1.5 hrs in total by foot and less by bike. The whole wall circuit, depending on your pace, can take around 4-5 hours by foot and 3-4 hours by bike.